Kannur: In a case of suspected murder-suicide, a newlywed couple and three children from the wife's first marriage were found dead in their house at Padiyottuchal in Kannur's Peringom grama panchayat on Wednesday.

Cherupuzha police, investigating the case, identified the deceased as Mulapra Veettil Shaji (40), his wife Nakudiyil Sreeja (38), and her three children Suraj (12), Subin (8) and Surabhi (6). The children were from Sreeja's first marriage to Sunil Kumar, who is also a day labourer.

Investigating officers said Sreeja called Cherupuzha police station around 6.30 am and said they were going to end their lives. The officers reached her house around 6.45 am. "By then all the five were dead," he said. Cherupuzha police station is around 7km from the house at Vachal near Padiyottuchal.

The tragic deaths could be a fallout of failed marriages and a dispute over the house, said a senior civil police officer at Cherupuzha police station.

Sreeja and Shaji, who was also married to another woman, got hitched on May 16 and started living together in Sunil Kumar's two-bedroom house at Vachal.

The new arrangement forced Sunil Kumar to leave his house. He filed a complaint against Sreeja and Shaji with Cherupuzha police and asked the officers to evict the couple from his house.

Cherupuzha police scheduled a reconciliatory meeting between Sreeja and Sunil Kumar at 10 am on Wednesday (May 24). "We were expecting them at the station but Sreeja phoned us at 6.30 am," the officer said.

Police found Suraj dead in the hall room, Subin and Surabhi were found by the staircase, and the couple was found dead in the bedroom.

Police suspect the couple might have killed the children first and then ended their own lives.